Story of our lives
by The Winds of Chaos
Summary: Everyone has a story, a reason why they are where they are in life. A reason why they are who they are. Superheroes, no matter how great are no different. Their stories have always gone untold-until now. Their lives, in a series of short stories-Past Present and Future.
1. An introduction

**Story of Our Life- AN: Hey guys this is just an Intro/Summary.**

**Summary **

Power. Every kid wishes for a superpower at some point in their lives. Having powers is supposed to be a blessing. Everyone loves the superheroes, everyone wants to be a superhero. Superheroes are

worshipped and needed, they can make anything better. They can stop any villain, save any child. Climb any mountain, solve any problem. They are unstoppable, un-end-able. Living on forever ,even after

their time has come, in our stories and memories. They are just like us, but no one sees it that way. Their better than us, our idols, our heroes. This is what everyone sees and thinks. They have it easy, they

don't have a hard life like us. We work for everything we have, and they have it handed to them. Easy.

For five different teens, from five different places. Having powers is not a gift. It is a curse wrapped in a bow. That's the way these heroes view their powers, as a curse. Their powers are blessings in

disguise. It made their lives hard. They grew stronger, wiser, braver, better all because of everything they have been through. They don't like their powers, but they fail to see how much they have been

helped by them. Having powers has helped them survive and has brought them together. They were alone in the world until they found each other. They don't see the good though, they only see the bad in

their powers. Abandoned, Alone, Scared, Used, and Hunted these are the words they relate to their powers. All of them are negative and melancholy. This collection of stories Takes us through the ups

and downs of the Titans. It shows them in their best and worst moments, their hardships, shortcoming, and happy times. Each oneshot showing a different part in the titans lives together. If you have any

ideas that you would like me to write up then send me a message or write it up in a review. I'm open to any and all suggestions. Otherwise the tales will continue on whenever I think of one to add to the

collection.


	2. Decay

Word Prompt: Decay

Written on: July 10th 2010

Typed on: August 21st 2010

A shout out to Pasts-Hormony2 and Silhouette the Sanvae. They both helped me out with this One-shot. :)

I know that this is not the fluffy one-shot that I was talking about,

but I was in a really rotten mood when I wrote this.

One rotten mood + Decay as a random word prompt = This one-shot.

They had finally found her. She had been missing for a few months now and they were starting to lose hope that they would ever find her alive, anyway. After rigorous search parties and a countless number of false leads, the search could be ended. The case could be closed.

It was a damp, misty day when she had gone out to buy a few new flowers for her garden. She shouldn't have been gone for more than an hour or two. After four hours and still no word from her, the team had gotten slightly worried. They had dismissed their worry because she could have gotten distracted. She could have taken a trip to the mall. Whatever the reason, there wasn't a need to worry. It was when she didn't come back in time for dinner that Robin called her communicator. When he didn't get an answer, he got nervous.

It was when she didn't come home the next day that he got worried. It was when a week passed and they still hadn't been able to contact her, that Robin, the fearless leader, had gotten scared.

The air in the tower was thick with tension and despair. The remaining Titans could feel their bonds of friendship weakening. They knew that they were distancing themselves from each other. Beastboy's laughter and cheer became strained, until it disappeared altogether. Robin threw himself into the case, searching for clues, hints to anything that would help them find Starfire. Raven withdrew into herself and soon, without Beastboy or Starfire's encouraging her to come out, she stopped leaving her room. Cyborg was becoming more of a machine than human without his friends around. Their friendship and love for each other was decaying and there was nothing that they could do to stop it. They didn't even know it was happening.

When September hit, they were barely hanging on to themselves and to her memory. Their hope of finding closure on her disappearance was all but lost. Then late one warm September afternoon, they got the call. The chief of police gave them a set of directions and told them to quickly meet him there.

Cyborg, Robin, and Beastboy drove silently to the location. Each of them was preparing for the worst, while shying away from the possibilities of how it could have happened. A pale looking girl watched over her friend. She watched the alien girl's eternal sleep, making sure no more harm would come to her.

Dread filled them as their destination revealed itself. The stench wafting off of the City Dump was staggering, and it had looks to match. Uneven piles of junk and garbage lead up to mountain like heaps. The piles were unnerving and they loomed over the boys in a foreboding manner. The reality of their situation set in, and the boys realized with a haunting finality what they would find there. With a few final shuddering breaths, the heroes steeled their wild and frayed nerves and stepped through the threshold of the dump. Unknowingly to them, the last few strands of life that made up their friendship died when they took those steps.

The chief of police was waiting for them on the other side of the barbed fence. He was a rather large man with a haunted expression that obviously derived from his disturbing job. What was left of his hair was an odd mix of white gray and brown and had an appearance of unevenness and limpness. His expression was taunt and grim. The small group nodded a greeting to each other. Robin stepped forward to speak.

"Where are they?" he demanded in a fragile and icy tone. He stood tense and still like a statue as he waited for an answer.

"Over here," came the gruff reply from the chief.

He set off towards the back of the dump. It was a long and quiet journey. Tripping over and avoiding the scattered and fallen trash that littered the pathways made the trip a tedious and slow process. It was worth it though as a small pile of trash showed itself. Robin, then Cyborg, then Beastboy followed the chief stoically in a disbelieving procession.

Robin's face was a carefully constructed mask. Calm, controlled, and expressionless. What was going on inside of him, though, proved to be a great contrast. Inside he was angry. He was hateful. He was a raging storm. There wasn't a place to hide from his barbed and painful thoughts. He wouldn't be able to find the solace that he desperately needed. Not when the person he was running from was himself.

Cyborg's face was one of disbelief. Shock was etched deeply into his facial features. His mechanical eye roamed the hill sides searching for the reason they were here. His mind was whirling with what ifs, and whys. Why did it have to be her? Why didn't he watch her more carefully? Why didn't he design a better tracking system? Who could have done this? What if it wasn't her who had died? What if it had been another one of his friends? What If it was—His thoughts were cut off as his robotic eye locked on to its goal. He stopped dead in his tracks as he made out the shape of a limp hand peeking out from behind a discarded milk jug. The finality of it slammed into him as he tried to deny the image. His mind had his recorded search playing on a constant loop. There was no denying what he had seen.

Beastboy had a look of a deep sadness and hurt, bordering on depression, displayed across his face. Sure he was used to death and hurt, but that didn't make it hurt any less than it did. Everybody dies, just some sooner than others, he reminded himself grimly. He knew what lied ahead of them. He had seen it - seen her - the moment that he saw the hill's looming figure. Animal sight had its quirks, but he didn't count this as one of them. He still trudged onwards even though he'd already seen the sight that they were looking for. He could smell the faint traces of Starfire and the stronger, fresher smell of Raven.

Starfire was here and by the smell of it, she had been here for a long time. He wondered where Raven was though. He could smell her but, he couldn't seem to find her. She had been the one to find Starfire, but she didn't meet up with them at the gate like she was supposed to.

He could barely catch the faint smell of Star but she smelt like warm spring days, the perfect mix of Earth's flowers, and some kind of sweet tangy alien fruit. Her scent was weak and he could only detect a few things. Raven's was fresher and stronger. He could smell everything that made up her scent. She smelt like fresh fallen snow, and crispy November leaves. She smelt like Jasmine, roses, vanilla and herbs. She smelt like a thunderstorm, books, and ink. Then there were the things that he couldn't put a name to, things that had to be from Azarath he thought. Things like magic, fire, smoke, mystery, things that were wild and untamed. .

Beastboy looked at Cyborg's shocked face as he passed the metal man. His steps stumbled for a moment and then he ran to catch up with Robin in the front of the procession. As he caught up with Robin he watched the chief of police hesitate. He was looking up at something or someone. Beastboy followed his gaze and he saw Raven. Her face was flushed and sickly looking, her eyes were red rimmed. Beastboy could smell the angry tears streaming down her face. She was glaring at the chief, warning him not to come any closer. The chief sighed and nodded at her. She pulled her hood up to cast her emotional face into darkness, then she strode forward and to meet up with Robin and Beastboy. Beastboy breathed a sigh a relief as he saw that she was unharmed and okay.

The procession stopped and the group stood there, waiting. Watching.

"Your services are no longer needed, I can take them from here." Raven spoke curtly to the chief.

He looked at her in disbelief which faded into quiet relief. He didn't want to see the crime scene, but it was still his job and he had to do it. Then again if the heroes of Jump City weren't going to let him see it..Well there wasn't much he could do about that. "You haven't let me see one thing, this is official police business. I have a right see the crime scene." Spoke the chief, but his voice was quiet and unsure instead of demanding and forceful.

Raven's eyes flashed red for a moment and then she collected herself. "You will close this case, then you will leave it alone. You will not breathe a word of it to anyone or else the police department will need a new chief. Understand?" Raven's voice was life a frozen knife, cutting, searing, and tearing the air around them.

As she spoke she used her telekinesis and lifted out the chief's note pad and tore it to shreds. The paper blew away in the slight breeze. She then used her powers to reach into his pants pocket and pulled out a voice recorder. It's light beeped with a dull green color, showing that it was on and recording everything. It stood suspended in air for moment and then burst into pieces. The shards of plastic and metal fell to the ground with a thud and a tinkling sound. Beastboy smelled the fear radiating off of the chief as he nodded quickly, turned and ran for the gates.

Raven then turned back to Robin and Beastboy. She noted that Cyborg was missing from the group but didn't mention it. She took a stuttering breath then started off for the small mound again. Robin and Beastboy were quick to follow. She got to her destination, turned, and waited for the others to catch up. She didn't need to see _It_ again. The memory was burned in to her already. It was an unwanted mark that would never leave. She knew that the sight of _Her_ would never leave her mind. She didn't need another look.

Raven had cleaned up the murder scene a little but the sight was still disturbing. She heard a small gasp come from Beastboy, before she heard him walk towards her. Beastboy wrapped his arms around Raven and she turned to hide her face in his chest. She let out a strangled sob, while she linked her arms around his neck. Beastboy's arms tightened around her as he kissed the top of her head. Starfire had gotten them together years ago, back when they were still only fifteen and life was simpler.

Cyborg looked up, startled by the wordless scream that echoed through the mounds of trash that had housed the Princess's body for all those months. The chief looked up back at the City Dump, as he got into his car. A sigh escaped his cracked lips and leaned back against the seat of his car. He wiped away a lone tear harshly. Sometimes he hated his job. The festering murder sights, the grieving friends, the distraught family, each reaction haunted his dreams at night. Each case - solved and unsolved - tormented him daily.

This time the case was far worse than any he had had before though. This time he knew the Titans worked with them almost daily. This time he knew the girl, for that's all she was, couldn't have been older than 23, he thought. This was a tragic loss for those kids, for the whole damn city! He smacked at the driving wheel with the palm of his hands.

"She was such a happy girl, and this was no way for her a saint like her to go." he spoke slowly, like every word that he said had been weighed down with sadness that bubbled inside of him.

Nobody saw Robin as he slid the engagement ring back onto her ring finger where it belonged. She had taken it off so it wouldn't be ruined while she was gardening. The jade sparkled and shimmered like her eyes. That's why he bought it for her, it looked just like her eyes. It was a rusty knife that twisted inside Robin's heart when he realized her eyes would never look like the jade engagement ring again.

Raven teleported the team and Starfire's body to Tameran. They stood for the _Royal Rituals for the Passed _and the burial of their friend. The Rituals lasted for 23 days, because that was how many years Star had lived. The Titans were teleported back to the Tower on the 24th day. The Team stayed together for a few weeks after that, but slowly they started to disband. They didn't mean to separate, but they did. Their bonds of friendship, love, blood, and tears decayed without the joyous Alien Princess around. They had Decayed until there was next to nothing left. Nothing but the rotten remains of what was, and what could never be fixed or overcome.

Starfire had been that sticky bit of love that made sure everyone forgave each other and moved on. Without her tensions, and grudges were made. Anger and a hurt too deep to be soothed stained the tower. Without every single member of the Titans, they weren't Titans anymore. Without all their members, they split apart and a future, darker than before, was painted out for them.

This time, though, there wasn't the chance to go back in time and fix everything. Starfire wouldn't return and fix everything again. Robin was going to stay a husk of the man that he once was. Cyborg was going to stay with Bumble Bee, but he still wouldn't be as happy as he once was. Raven and Beastboy still got married, but they still missed their best friends. They still missed the only family that they had left. A family of five ragged, crazy heroes, that had gone past the bonds of friendship and into the bonds of family.

This wasn't the future that they would of have had, should have had, but it was all that they could have now. All because they had used up their second chance at a happy future. They screwed up and lost her, again, and this time she wasn't going to come back.

-W*of*C I hope that wasn't too depressing and I know it's not one of my better works, but it'll do.

Reviews are wonderful and they help me grow as a writer :D


	3. A word

this is just a note to all the readers who were following this story. I have not forgotten about it, and i do plan on getting back to it at some point i'm just not sure when that will be. I started this story and then life got really crazy (multiple hospitalizations, sister born with terminal illness, four moves in a year, school and day to day life) and i'm sorry but fan-fiction and all of my writing got benched for later. i just recently moved once again and even though things are evening out and settling down i still can't promise updates in the near future even though i have the next few chapters written out.

i hope to have something for you all soon, and i do give my apologies about standing you guys up.

-The winds of chaos.


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